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Google, GroupOn

Image via CrunchBaseThis is great for Google. But was this great for GroupOn? Why did GroupOn not seek an IPO route? That is the question I find myself asking.

The nearest parallel is YouTube. GroupOn came out of nowhere to take over the world, only to offer itself to the giant in the Valley: Google.

Heck, if the GroupOn guys were smart enough to build the company, they were smart enough to sell it off. Who am I to second guess?

AllThingsD: Google's Groupon Offer: $5.3 Billion, With $700 Million Earnout: will move the search giant instantly to the top spot in local commerce online and give it huge troves of data about consumer buying habits and merchant information across the globe.... a killer move for Google .... With its more than $33 billion in cash and strong stock, it had previously tried to buy local reviews site Yelp, in a deal that fell apart for reasons thatImage via Wikipedia are still unclear..... Groupon, founded in 2008, has taken off like a Roman candle ....upward of $50 million in monthly revenue.... Google could own a start-up that is largely powered by rival Facebook’s massive skein of social networking connections..... Groupon CEO and Justin Bieber lookalike Andrew Mason. ... fascinated to see how he’ll mesh with Marissa Mayer

This is a master stroke by Google. And it is perhaps not bad for GroupOn either, because Google perhaps can do things that GroupOn could not. And then next year there will be another hot company that will come out of nowhere.

Google just bought a company that Facebook is envious of. That makes it a slam dunk. Since Facebook already collaborates with GroupOn, I guess now we will see the deepest Google-Facebook collaboration yet. Image via CrunchBase

This is not boxing, this is fake boxing.

This is a great space for anyone to occupy. You get local, mobile, social, global all at once. Six billion is not a high price to pay. Google paid too little for YouTube. But then GroupOn is highly monetized.